Actually I had to remove the needles.....they just pop off with a little even pressure. I used two butter knives. But you mess up the alignment of the needles when you do that. I thought i could just put them back on at zero. WRONG. I had to drive about a week with the plastic cover removed to eyeball the odometer and speedometer. Pain in the ass but it is pretty much dead on now. I think that if you read the wiring diagrams for the cluster that you could find the plug leads for the power wire from the rpm and speed sensors and hook up a small amount of voltage to make the needle go up and then mark where it was when you took it off. But as far as your question, I recommend putting some diffusing paper behind the gauges to disperse the light better(note the picture above shadowing). The gauges with a standard bulb are kind of a blueish purple so with blue bulbs you should have a pretty deep blue back lighting with it being light blue at the odometer. It's pretty intensive work but the result looks better that anything else that I have really seen......Like a stock white face gauge.

Hope this helps.